


Fig Leaves

by batsinboots



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Desmond Miles Needs a Nap, F/M, Gen, Isu Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27751237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batsinboots/pseuds/batsinboots
Summary: Desmond wakes up in the past—over 80,000 years in the past, to be precise.In which Desmond really doesn’t have a plan, but it all gets derailed anyway.
Relationships: Adam (Assassin's Creed) & Desmond Miles & Eve (Assassin's Creed), Adam (Assassin's Creed)/Eve (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 128





	Fig Leaves

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](https://chamiryokuroi.tumblr.com/post/631506112764592128/most-desmond-centric-fics-desmond-goes-back-to) fantastic post on tumblr. 
> 
> My love of Desmond Miles could no longer be contained, and so this fic was born.
> 
> Please note that I've only ever played the games (and not all of them, at that). If there's any other ac media out there that gave us more Isu lore, I'm not using it. Also, let's pretend that Isu are very tall, and they designed humans to be shorter and therefore literally beneath them (which puts hybrids somewhere in between). Because I like the idea of Eve and Desmond being the same height.

Desmond opens his eyes, and all he sees is light.

Something about this is wrong, he knows.

He isn’t supposed to be here, wherever here is. He’s supposed to be. . . elsewhere. He’s supposed to be burning—he _was_ burning, but now he isn’t. He doesn’t remember when the fire stopped. He doesn’t remember. . .

His body feels heavy.

He blinks, and the light folds away into a clear blue sky. Whatever he’s lying on is unyielding—cold, too. He didn’t expect the cold.

Or the noise.

Last he remembers, he was dying in a cave in the middle of nowhere. So why does he hear. . . anything, really? He expected quiet, when he let himself expect anything at all. But this. . . It sounds like a city, he thinks—power humming over metal, over glass. Wind whistles between buildings. Somewhere in the distance, he hears construction.

And above it all, his own heart beats.

He breathes in, almost chokes on air so clean it tastes sweet. What kind of city—?

Groaning, he rolls onto his belly, presses his forehead against whatever it is he’s lying on. He lifts his head, blinks fuzzy vision clear and sees—buildings, but not like any he’s seen before. They curve against the sky, sprawling as wide as they are tall, gleaming white. In the midday sun, they almost hurt to look at.

He pushes himself to his knees, swaying with the effort of it.

Then to his feet.

He stumbles forward, cursing under his breath when he almost trips right off the edge of the roof he’s somehow landed himself on. As he looks out over the skyline and the mountains that rise beyond it, he’s struck with the strangest sense of familiarity. It’s almost like—

“Hey!”

Heart in his throat, he whirls to see. . . a man. A really, _really_ naked one. It says something—and not a very good something—about the life he leads that this isn’t even the weirdest thing that’s happened to him today.

The man shouts at him again, waving some sort of baton over his head. “Get away from there!”

At the command, the baton begins to shine and emit a familiar whine.

Ah, he thinks. Fuck. _That,_ he wants nothing to do with. He looks over his shoulder, considers the height of the building and the soft glow waiting below. Is he really. . . ?

The baton shines brighter.

Yep, he really is. “Okay,” he says, palms in the air, placating, “I will. Just give me a—a moment.” The man lowers the baton; the light dims. Somewhere deep in his chest, a pressure eases.

He steps backward over the building's edge, and he falls.

If he thought being at ground level might help him make sense of what’s happened—of where he’s ended up, he’d be wrong. Instead, it only gives him more questions.

Aside from the odd, sterile cleanliness of the place, which is even more pronounced down below, the first thing he notices is how empty the city feels. It’s midday, and no one is out. There’s no sounds of traffic or of people walking by.

When a group of people does pass by his hiding place—tucked into the shadows cast by a squat building—they’re just as strange as the city they live in. Like the man on the roof, they’re bare but for the golden veins—like circuitry, he thinks, and his right arm grows warm—beneath their skin. They aren’t looking at each other. They’re walking in time to a beat he can’t hear.

Across the street, a man and woman exit one of the buildings.

They’re talking animatedly to each other; they don’t look at the group walking by, and the group doesn’t look at them. Even from this distance, he can see that they’re tall—at least half a head taller than he is, they’d tower over everyone else he’s seen since he arrived. And perhaps oddest of all, though one would think this is the most normal thing about them, they’re clothed, wearing odd robes and headpieces that remind him of. . .

Oh.

Oh, _shit._

Before he can even begin to process what this means, a door opens to his left, and more people spill out into the street. “There he is!”

It’s the man from the roof, and this time, he’s brought friends. A whole crowd of them, all armed with the same shining batons. All naked. Because they’re human, Desmond thinks half-hysterically, and to the Isu—

He breaks into a run, and the guards give chase.

By all counts, they should have the advantage. He’s never been here before; he has no idea where he’s going. But instead of running blind, he finds his Eagle Vision blooming easily to the surface of his mind, more than it ever has before, guiding his steps. He follows where it leads, branching away from the wide, open streets until he looks around and sees he’s been led to a district completely unlike the one he landed in. Instead of curving, gleaming towers, he’s surrounded on all sides by harsh lines and deep shadows, with all sorts of alcoves waiting to be discovered.

It’s the perfect place to disappear.

Still, he doesn’t risk slowing just yet. These humans are faster than any he met in his own time, even back at the Farm. It wouldn’t surprise him if they’re more persistent too. Sure, he doesn’t feel eyes on him, but they could catch up at any moment, so he keeps running, until—he turns a corner and runs smack into another body.

He doesn’t fall flat on his ass, but only because of the bruising grip on his arms that keeps him upright.

Recovering his balance, he loosens his own grip on the woman he ran into and staggers back, as far as he can with her hold on him. She’s human, he thinks. Or, mostly. She’s as tall as he is. She has the same dark hair and even darker eyes as the man from the roof, but most of her skin is free of the golden lines he saw on the others. For one dizzying moment, his vision folds in on itself, and she _shines._

By the time he blinks the world into focus again, he realizes she’s staring right back at him. Her dark eyes are piercing, and there’s a light in them he recognizes.

“Uh, hi,” he says, unsettled. He pulls free of her hold, scrubs one hand sheepishly through the hair at the back of his head. “Sorry about that. I’ll just—“

She snatches his arm again, holding him in place. “Wait.”

“Wh—?”

“Shh.”

She tugs him closer to the wall, tucked beside a door he only just notices as he’s pressed against it. Before he can attempt to question her again, he hears footsteps at the mouth of the alley. Holding his breath, he watches the woman’s expression shift as her own gaze flits over his face.

She looks familiar, in the same way the city did from up above.

The footsteps fade. He feels her relax and follows suit. “Thanks,” he says, peering back over his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” the woman asks when he steps away.

“I’m. . . not sure,” Desmond says.

He should probably avoid the open streets, but that won't be too difficult. During his flight from the guards, he passed by more than a few places that looked safe enough to hide in while he figures out what happened to him. Well, what happened to him beyond the obvious.

The woman tilts her head, and he feels his skin prickle under her gaze. “You should stay.”

“Excuse me?”

She blinks placidly at him. “Did you not hear me?”

“No, I did. I just—You just saw me getting chased down by a pack of guards, and you want me to _stay?”_

“You have a story to tell, stranger.” She uses her grip on his wrist to lift his right hand into the air, and his sleeve falls further down his wrist, baring more of his skin—his burnt, gold-threaded skin. “I want to hear it.”

And, well.

He doubts he’ll be getting any better offers, let alone any offers for the low price of just a story.

“Alright,” he says, in part because he’s too tired to argue now that safety is in reach. “I’ll stay.”

She bares her teeth in a pleased grin, then finally releases him as she turns to open the door they hid beside. When she enters a code into the panel above the latch, he promptly memorizes it, and then he’s being ushered into a dark stairwell, lit only by a skylight up above and the occasional flickering light along the walls.

Considering what he’s seen of the city so far, he expected more.

“C’mon,” the woman says, nudging him aside so she can lead him up the steps. “We’re near the top.”

Ugh.

Maybe he should’ve taken his chances with the guards. “I’m Desmond, by the way,” he says after almost a minute of climbing in silence.

The woman looks back over her shoulder. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Desmond,” she says. The skin beside her eyes crinkles when she grins. “I’m Eve.”

Fuck, he thinks, his shoulders slumping.

Of _course_ she is.

Whatever he expected after being let into her apartment, an interrogation about the clothes he’s wearing wasn’t it. “But I don’t understand,” Eve says, circling him to tug at the hem of his hoodie. “Why would you wear such a thing? Is your home cold enough that it’s customary for humans to cover themselves?”

“Uh, no?” he says, shrugging her hand away when it trails up to his hood. “It’s just, well. I’d be naked without them.”

Eve frowns. “And that's a bad thing?”

“No.” Desmond carefully doesn’t look below her shoulders. “It’s just. . . not for me. Do _you_ like being naked?”

“Hmm.” Eve looks down at herself, considering. “I suppose so. I’ve never given it much thought.”

“Well, there you go.”

“I thought it might be because of your hand,” Eve tells him after a beat. “If all of your skin is burnt, then it would make sense to hide it.”

Ah. Right.

Also. . . Ouch.

He curls his fingers into a fist, tugging the end of his sleeve down to cover his hand. He hasn’t had much—or any, rather—time to look at himself since he arrived, and so he doesn’t know how bad the damage might be. But he knows he doesn’t want to find out in front of an audience.

“Nope,” he says. “It’s just the one arm.”

Even without looking, he can tell that much.

It feels almost dead where it hangs at his side.

“I’ve made you uncomfortable,” Eve says, her gaze shrewd. Desmond stills, feels his Eagle Vision flare and sees a matching shine looking back. She blinks, and the light fades. Gesturing toward a raised pallet near the apartment's only window, she says, “Sit. I’ll get you some food.”

“Oh, you don’t have to—“

She waves a dismissive hand, ignoring him as she goes to dig through one of the cabinets in what might pass for a kitchen, if you squint. “It doesn’t take much,” she tells him. “Only the gods eat food that takes time.”

She breaks three pieces off of a square of something that looks almost like chalk, then boils a pot of water that she separates into three bowls. After dropping each piece into a bowl, she carries two of them back to the pallet where she left him.

He takes one, pleased to feel the warmth of it against his palms. “Thanks.”

“Hmm. Don’t thank me yet.” When he looks at her, startled, she grins. “You haven’t even tried it.”

“Oh.” He supposes it does look a bit. . . unappetizing. Like oatmeal, but worse. When she lifts her bowl to her mouth, he copies her and is pleasantly surprised. It tastes a bit like beef stock, though the texture makes his mouth itch. “It’s not so bad.”

“High praise.”

He surprises himself by laughing, then busies himself with drinking the rest. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was.

“Would you like another?” Eve asks, a knowing look on her face as she watches him gather the last of it on his finger before sticking it in his mouth. He shakes his head, and she tsks. “I made the third bowl for my Adam, but he doesn’t have to know.”

“Know what?” a new voice asks from the doorway, and Desmond flinches.

He didn't even hear the door open.

“I’m giving our new friend your food,” Eve says, rising to meet the man—Adam. Because of course he’d be dropped right into the path of the humans who started the first rebellion. Why wouldn’t he be?

Adam chuckles, gathering her to his chest and dropping a kiss onto her cheek. _“Our_ new friend, eh? Don’t I get a say in who my friends are?”

“What’s mine is yours,” Eve says dryly.

Adam only laughs again, then releases her to approach Desmond instead. “Well then, my friend,” he says as he extends a hand, “please, help yourself to as much of my food as you’d like.”

Desmond takes the offered hand and is surprised to find himself tugged to his feet and clasped to the man’s chest in an embrace so quick it leaves him reeling. “I—Thank you,” he says when he’s recovered. “But I really don’t need more.”

“Hmm.” Adam takes him by the shoulders, looks him over with a skeptical gaze. “I understand, I think,” he says to Eve. Then, to Desmond, “Please, I insist.”

Without waiting for his acceptance, he gently bullies Desmond back onto the pallet, taking the empty bowl from him and replacing it with the one full of food that Eve passes over.

“This is Desmond,” she says as she tucks herself under Adam’s arm, watching Desmond eat. “Desmond, this is my Adam.”

Desmond lowers the bowl long enough to exchange nods, then goes back to eating, watching them interact with undisguised curiosity. At one point, Adam stands to prepare a bowl for himself, chatting idly with Eve as he does. From their conversation, he learns that Adam works an early shift in the mines outside the city, and Eve is an aide for a scientist.

“And what do you do, Desmond?” Adam asks, taking the now empty bowl from his unresisting hands.

“Sorry, what?” Desmond asks, caught off guard.

Adam exchanges a wry look with Eve, who takes over. “You bear no identifiers except the ones on your hand, and those aren’t any markings I can read.”

“Oh, um. . .” He fiddles with the sleeve of his hoodie before pushing it up his arm, baring his skin up to his elbow. Adam and Eve both lean forward, taking a closer look. “I suppose that’s because I’ve been, uh. Off the grid. For a while.”

“Off the grid?” Adam echoes, like he’s testing out the phrase.

Eve, meanwhile, leans forward to trace one finger over the golden lines imbedded into Desmond’s arm. “You were made by the gods, but. . . you were also. . . not?”

And, yeah, that’s a pretty accurate summary, he thinks with a sigh. “They planned for me,” he says, and she looks up, paying close attention, “but they didn’t _make_ me. That duty fell on someone else.”

Multiple someone elses, really.

Jury’s still out on whether they did a good job.

“Planned, but not made,” Eve says to herself, then falls silent as she thinks.

Adam watches her fondly. “You’ve given her quite the puzzle, my friend,” he says, grinning when he catches Desmond looking. “If your goal was to find your own way in this city, I’m afraid you’ve failed. You’ll never be free of us now.”

Desmond isn’t sure if that was a warning or a joke, but he can’t be bothered to be worried about it. “I’m sure I’ll survive,” he says dryly. Though, considering his track record. . . Without really stopping to think it through, he says, “There’s more.”

“More?” Eve asks, her eyes alight. “Tell us.”

And, well.

It’s too late not to now, isn’t it?

“What do you know about the, uh. . .” What did Minerva call them, again? “. . .the calculations?”

Eve’s brow furrows. “Not much,” she admits grudgingly. “The gods use them to see into the future, to guide their actions. Beyond that. . .” She trails off, shrugs.

“That’s enough for this,” Desmond says, crossing his legs under himself and leaning forward onto his elbows. “I came here because something is coming, something bad.”

“What is it?” Adam asks when he hesitates, unsure how much further he wants to go.

“An extinction event,” Desmond says eventually, because he’s pretty sure these two are the only option he has. The more they know, the more they can help him. To a point, at least. “A solar flare that will wipe out nearly all life on this planet. I don’t know when it’s coming, exactly, but I’ve seen it.”

 _“You’ve_ seen it?” Eve asks, her eyes narrowed in thought.

“I—“ He stops, wonders how much that slip will end up costing him and decides he doesn’t really care. “Yes, I have. The Isu—the gods—will try to stop it, but they’ll fail. In the aftermath, all but a few of them will die, and most of the humans too.”

“And you want to stop it,” Adam guesses.

“I do.”

For a long moment, they only look at him, solemn. Then, Adam asks, “Why?”

Desmond blinks, surprised. “Why, what?”

“Why do you want to stop it? By the sound of it, the gods will not survive this solar flare. Without them, we’ll be free.”

These two are the ones who'll someday start a war with the Isu, Desmond reminds himself. He really shouldn’t be surprised. “Well, yes, but—"

“It’s a fair exchange,” Eve says, eyes closed like she’s imagining it. “The gods, disappearing into light, leaving their creations to inherit the world they made.”

“Did you not hear the part about humans dying too?” Desmond demands, incredulous.

Eve looks at him, one brow raised. “You said it will kill _most_ humans.”

“I know what I said.”

“Well, then there must be a way to survive this flare.” She leans forward, eager. “Isn’t there?”

“I. . . suppose,” Desmond says, thinking back to Minerva’s final warning and shoving aside the tangle of emotions that tries to rise at the memory. “If you can escape the sun’s reach, you might survive the flare.”

“Then we’ll do that instead,” Adam says, like it’s settled. “We’ll find a place to be safe, and we’ll bring the others with us, leaving the gods to their graves.”

“Hold on,” Desmond says. _“We?”_

“It’s perfect,” Eve says, gripping tight at Adam’s hand, and Desmond wants to throw something.

“No,” he says, voice strained, “it _isn’t_ perfect. Do you realize how big this planet is? How many humans there are to save? It’d be impossible to hide them all. The only way to keep them safe is to stop the flare before it begins.” Adam and Eve share a skeptical look, and Desmond doesn’t want to insult the people who’ve just welcomed him into their home, but really? “And anyway,” he says briskly, “if it isn’t stopped now, it’ll just happen _again,_ thousands of years from now, when no one will know to expect it.”

Of everything he’s said so far, this is what makes Eve pause. She reexamines him through narrowed eyes. “How do you know this?”

Ah. Shit. “I told you, the calculations—"

“The calculations are the power of the gods,” Eve says firmly. “No god alive would allow you to read them.” He opens his mouth to defend himself, though he doesn’t yet know how he’ll manage it, and she pushes on. “Furthermore, you came to us to warn of a disaster that is coming soon, and now you speak of one that will come in a thousand years?”

“Well, it’s actually more than a thousand—"

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” Adam interrupts him, looking at Desmond as if through new eyes. “One of the humans who came after, without the gods to shape your life. That’s why you’re so different.”

“Planned, but not made,” Eve echoes, cocking her head as she looks him over, cataloguing all the ways Desmond falls short of the uncanny perfection the Isu normally engineer in their creations.

And Desmond didn’t come here with a plan—in fact, he didn’t plan to come here at all—but somehow, it’s all managed to go off course regardless. With a heavy sigh, he admits, “I am.”

“Then how. . . ?”

“The Isu were wiped out by the flare, but there were remnants left behind. Images of themselves, made according to their calculations, to speak to the future.”

He doesn’t know how much to tell them. He doesn’t know what’s necessary.

He thinks he probably shouldn’t tell them about the rebellion they’re supposed to lead. At least, not yet.

“Go on,” Adam says, folding his hands together under his chin.

Desmond feels like he could sleep for a year. “An Isu named Minerva spoke to me; she told me about the first disaster, about how they couldn’t stop it. She told me another was coming.”

“And it did?” Eve asks.

“Yes.” Desmond flexes his hand, and their gazes snap to it, flaring gold. “I—“

“You stopped it,” Eve says.”

He wonders if this is how Shaun and Rebecca felt under his Eagle Vision. If so, he owes them an apology, though he doubts he’ll ever get the chance to make it. He wonders if this thought should make him more upset than it does, then promptly decides it doesn’t matter.

Not yet.

“I did,” he says, “and it killed me.” He reminds himself to breathe, reminds himself that leaving the Isu to their fiery deaths is not a fitting response to one of them fucking him over. “And then I woke up here.”

“Minerva, you said,” Eve says after a beat. When Desmond nods, she purses her lips. “I know of her. You think she can stop this disaster?”

It’s not that simple, but. “Yes.”

“You think she _will?”_

“I think the Isu are selfish,” Desmond says carefully, “like most people are. If you can’t trust them to save human lives, trust them to save their own.”

Eve frowns, but seems to accept it.

Adam sighs. Some of the tension in his frame drains away. “What an exciting friend we’ve made today,” he says to himself. Then, before Desmond has the chance to feel guilty for landing himself in their lives like this, he clasps his hand over Desmond’s shoulder. “You’ll need to speak to this Minerva, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Can this be done?” he asks, turning to Eve.

She frowns, tapping her fingers against her arm. Then, reluctantly, she says, “It can. I know the building where she does most of her work.”

“Then we’ll go there tomorrow,” Adam says, looking pleased to have this all settled. “In the meantime, perhaps we should work on helping you fit in.”

“What?” Desmond asks, his voice rising in pitch. He crosses his arms over himself, like he’s afraid they’re going to snatch the clothes right off of his body. “Why?”

Adam gestures to, well, all of him. “It takes but one look at you to know you don’t belong.”

“Then I’ll stay out of sight,” Desmond says.

“Of course,” Adam says, nodding, and Desmond eyes him suspiciously, and rightfully so. “That will work fine, until you must speak to the. . . Isu.” His tongue trips over the new word, and Desmond grins. It sounds much better than calling them _gods._ “What will you do then?”

“I’ll. . .” The thought of stripping for the sole purpose of talking to one of the Isu makes him feel like he’s on the verge of passing out, so he shoves it firmly from his mind. “I’ll just stand out, then.” He lifts his burnt hand. “Won’t this make fitting in impossible, anyway?”

Adam opens his mouth to keep arguing.

“He has a point, my love,” Eve says before he can. “If you want to get the man naked so badly, just ask. He doesn’t seem the type to mind.”

Adam sputters.

Desmond wants to know if it’s possible to die from blood rushing to the face. He meets Eve’s amused gaze and groans, pressing his hands to his burning cheeks.

Finally, Adam gathers himself enough to speak. “That’s not what this is about!”

“No?” Eve asks.

“Of course not!” he exclaims, and Desmond wonders if he should be offended by the strength of his denial.

Then he decides he really doesn’t care.

“—and anyway,” Eve is saying by the time he tunes back in. “I think the clothes are nice. In fact, perhaps I should acquire some of my own.”

She looks to Desmond, then, like he has any idea about how to make that happen.

Suddenly this is all feeling very biblical—Desmond with his forbidden knowledge, offering clothes. “Yeah, alright,” he says, wondering if this is some elaborate fever dream, if he’ll wake up soon to find himself in an Abstergo lab with half of his organs removed. “We’ll get you some clothes. It’ll be fun.”

"Clothes, then stopping a solar flare," Eve says with a nod.

And, well, when you put it like that, it all sounds so simple.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Fun fact: I have a tumblr ([batsinboots](https://batsinboots.tumblr.com/)), though it's pretty empty at the moment.


End file.
